Category: Event Results

After over 7 hours of play, Michael McKinnon has emerged as the Champion of Event #4 in the October Power Weekend – the $100 + $10 Deepstack Turbo Re-entry. For long periods of play it looked like other results were practically guaranteed – both Gary Lucci and George Iliacopoulos looked to have insurmountable leads – but Michael persevered and managed to come out on top! The final act in the tournament started with three players remaining, after a deal had been struck and Mario was removed in the first hand following the deal. This set up a stretch of almost two full levels that were played 3-way between George, Michael, and Franco Casarcia. At this point, George had an overwhelming chip lead and it seemed that the players were simply “playing out the string” to borrow a term from the baseball world. Eventually, Franco’s stack had dwindled to almost nothing […]

Event #3 of the Playground Power Weekend – a $200 + $30 + $100 PL Omaha Bounty Re-Entry event – has just come to an end and we have crowned our winner: Manfred Gunther. No less than 40 entries were logged for this tournament, including 10 re-entries. The action was fast and intense for the most part of the evening. Midway through the tournament, quite a few of the shorter stacks ended up on the table hosting most of the chip leaders. That put a heightened amount of pressure on them, and the eliminations were at a steady pace. After 11 levels, we were down to the last 9 players and a full seating redraw took place for the final table action. It was no surprise that Manfred Gunther, who had a pristine run all evening, was the chip leader on the final table. His stack alone was bigger than […]

Event #1 in the October Power Weekend was a $100 + $10 8-Max Re-entry. 72 entries joined the tourney, and 9 players got paid. It took about 6 hours to get to the final table, but the final 9 got it done in just an hour and a half! When Michael Zenetzis left in 3rd, heads up play was between Anderson F and Mike Lafable. The pair have played together for the longest time right here at Playground, but today they found out that they are also frequent opponents on the virtual felts! Anderson, reportedly, worked his way into this tournament from a centroll that cost him 0.21$! From there, he worked his way through 4 levels of feeders to get the PP LIVE Dollars that he used to buy into the first event of the Power Weekend. What a parlay! The duel did not last very long. Zenetzis had […]

A little after 9AM on Tuesday morning at Playground Poker Club, after 12 full days of competitive tournament poker, the WSOP-C Playground concluded. The festival presented 7 Ring Events and proudly launched Season IV of the WSOP International Circuit. The Main Event, at a $1,000 + $100 buy-in, was the playing field of the $50K Last Longer, reserved to those who bought in with PP LIVE Dollars. Nathan Hall, finishing 5th in the tournament, added $50,000 in PP LIVE Dollars to his $72,000 fifth prize. He secured his $50K bonus when the 38th position was eliminated! You can read the full story here. Our friend Kristen Bicknell pocketed her biggest cash to date at Playground, finishing 4th in the $2,000 + $200 High Roller event for $36,220. She actually played for over 18 hours on Day 2 to beat her personal record at this venue! Of course, not every player was […]

Event #6 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $2,000 + $200 High Roller, was a huge success that surpassed all expectations. There was a relatively short Day 1 that saw only eight levels of plays but drew a healthy turnout nonetheless. 112 players were survived to play Day 2, but the structure allowed for four levels of late registration and re-entries to start the day which let the field to grow to 288 entries. The huge turnout brought the prize pool to beyond double the $250,000 guarantee. The top 39 finishers walked away with some profit from this event, but everyone was hoping for the champion’s six-figure prize, WSOP ring, and lifelong bragging rights as a WSOP Circuit Event champion. But attaining those goals would end up taking more skill, patience and determination than anyone would have expected. The field was full of top-tier talent, and play on Day 2 lasted for more […]

The Heads up action between Gino Roland Frenette and Tomas Larivee Magni was not very long. As per standard protocol the length of the levels was reduced to 15 minutes, and the battle began. Although they were almost evenly stacked, they played safely and they played to win. Gino gradually grinded out Tomas’s chips until the last hand. On the last hand both men chuckled because they almost had the exact same hand: Gino: Tomas: Upon seeing the hand Tomas said: “we almost have the same hand, chop-chop probably”, and Gino nodded his approval. But, as fate would have it, the single card that was not identical was key: the 3. The dealer laid out the flop: and Tomas said: “No! Not the three”, with a smile. The and the changed nothing and Gino, in line with his entire day, won the last hand and took 1st place with the […]

Event 5 of the WSOP-C Playground, the Closer, just wrapped up in a jiffy. The event, fueled by 4 starting days, roared into its final day at noon with 211 players at the tables. After 12 hours of poker, it was down to just Robert Cheung, François Tarrab and Allan Barnes. Cheung gobbled Barnes’ chips, which allowed him to face Tarrab in a pretty even heads-up match. The match lasted 4 hands. In the third, Cheung completed the big blind from the button for 300K. Tarrab made it 900K to go, but when Cheung announced all-in, chose to fold with an ace face up. On the following hand, Tarrab made it 725K to go, and when Cheung went all-in again, he called right away. Unfortunately for Tarrab, he was drawing to one of 3 aces, and did not hit. He will have to console himself with $37,000, the amount that […]

The inaugural WSOP-C Playground Main Event has come to an end and the Champion has been crowned: congratulations to Danny Freitas! With the player deal that was made when there were just two players remaining – and the huge chip lead Danny enjoyed – heads up play was never destined to be a long affair. Maxime Boulais doubled up once – but otherwise, everything was going Freitas’ way and nothing was going to stop his championship bid. The win caps off a fantastic week, as Freitas also final tabled Event #1, the Colossus, and arguably exited prematurely in 6th place having controlled the table and the leaderboard for long stretches of play. The same was true in the Main Event. Freitas began play on Day 4 in 4th place on the leaderboard with 8.925M in chips, and just two levels in to the final day, he was past the 25M […]

After a heads up battle that can only be described as epic, Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault has emerged as the Champion of Event #4 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $5,000 + $300 Super High Roller event. Igor Picone, a young Belgian player, put up a massive fight and on several occasions looked like he might come out on top. For his victory in the event, Marc-Olivier won $100,000 plus the coveted WSOP Circuit Ring, while Igor had to settle for $67,000 for second place. Day 2 in the event started with just 11 players remaining, and by the end of the first three levels of play on the day there were 5 eliminations, the bubble was burst, and the first three players to be paid made their exit – Pablo Mariz in 9th place, Mike Leah in 8th, and Omid Shahbazian in 7th. Play was 6-handed and Marc-Olivier had managed to build […]

After 14 hours of intense play in Day 2, the Monster Stack tournament is over. Dallis Kerbrat has won Event #3 of the 2018 WSOP-C Playground – Monster Stack! Play on Day 2 began with 145 players from yesterday’s Day 1. The pace was constant and eliminations were happening at a regular rate. Once the players were down to 16 there was a redraw, from then on the play slowed down considerably. At that point Khalid was chip leader by a hefty margin and Dallis was in 6th position. Khalid Waziri was consistently among the chip leaders throughout the day. Dallis Kerbrat’s rise to glory was not as seamless, and the 19 year-old from B.C. chewed and clawed his way to the final table. No less than 5 players were eliminated in one single level on the final table. Waziri played position, stack and image to chip away at his […]

Jason Mandanici-Turcot has won Event #1 of the 2018 WSOP-C Playground – the Colossus! After a heads up battle that lasted over 100 minutes in length – despite there being a deal in place – Jason finally found a way to best his opponent, Trevor Delaney, and take down the Championship. For his efforts on the day, Jason won $125,130 in cash and the first-ever WSOP-C Playground Championship Ring! Play on Day 3 of the tournament began with 37 players and the pace that was set at the beginning was blisteringly fast. There were 13 eliminations in the first hour of play today and another 8 in the second hour of play. The only time there was any kind of lull in the action was on the “bubble” before the redraw to take the tournament to two tables. When there were 5 players left, a deal was proposed and rejected […]

Event 9 was a $200 +$30 + $100 6-Max Bounty, a player favourite and the closing event of the July Power Weekend. Participation was huge, made up of tournament regulars, occasionals and even cash game players. 178 entries were accounted for, and a huge prize pool was formed. Danny Ibrahim was the first player to enjoy a crushing lead, having almost twice as many chips as his closest opponent at one point. He did take part in the final table chop. Jonathan Bussières, a very experienced player, was on the hunt. He went after those bounties relentlessly, and his aggressive style and calculated risks got him pretty deep, until he lost a huge pot against Sébastien Proulx for all his chips and missed the final table by one position. As soon as the final table formed, players agreed to a deal that sped up play considerably. Quick confrontations led to […]